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ESA's Eurobot rover roving at Estec on 7 August under live control by astronaut Alexander Gerst on board the ISS. The demonstration helped test a new fault-tolerant telecommunication network that could support a future mission to Mars or an asteroid.

ESA astronaut Andreas Mogensen commanding the Eurobot rover from space. As part of ESA’s Meteron project, Andreas a second, car-sized rover from the International Space Station to repair a mockup lunar base in the Netherlands.

Andreas directly controlled the Eurobot rover in a simulated troubleshooting Moon scenario. A second rover was controlled by ESA’s centre in Germany, allowing Andreas to focus on Eurobot and intervene if necessary.

The new user interface for operating rovers from space ran perfectly as they worked in harmony at close quarters without any problems. The experiment went so well that it was completed in one continuous session rather than over the planned three sessions on two days.

Andreas’s ESA ‘iriss’ mission lasts ten days and he is devoting his time in space to test new technologies and improving space operations. His activities include testing a new water-cleaning membrane that mimics nature, hands-free goggles to help with complex tasks, a tight-fitting suit to alleviate back pain common in astronauts and driving three different rovers on Earth to prepare for missions farther away in our Solar System.

Interview with ESA astronaut Andreas Mogensen after returning his iriss mission to the International Space Station.

Andreas, together with Russian commander Gennady Padalka and Kazakh cosmonaut Aidyn Aimbetov, landed with the Soyuz TMA-16M spacecraft in the Kazakh steppe at 02:51 CEST (00:51 GMT) on 12 September 2015.

ESA used the iriss mission to test new technologies and conduct a series of scientific experiments.